Learning Turkish Through TV, Music and Friendship: Rocio’s Story

Continuing my student stories series, this time I’m sharing a piece by Rocio, one of my former students.

Rocio found her way to Turkish through an unusual route. After her family moved to a predominantly Muslim neighborhood, she became curious about the community around her. That curiosity eventually led her to Turkish television, then Turkish history, and finally the language itself. By the time we met, she had already spent years learning Turkish through university courses, online programs, apps, videos, music, and pretty much anything else she could find.

We studied together for a year. By then, Rocio had learned a lot, but she had also accumulated so many different ways of studying that Turkish had started to become overwhelming. I had the chance to watch her slow things down, trust what she already knew, and gradually begin to see how much Turkish she actually understood.

When I asked Rocio if she would like to write about her experience, she said yes, and what she sent me was far more open and personal than I had expected. She wrote about the good parts, the frustrating ones, the people she met along the way, and the moments when Turkish became connected to much bigger things in her life. I’m very grateful that she trusted me with all of it and that she was happy for me to share it here.

This is her story, in her own words.

The Language That Became More Than a Language

My family and I have moved many times throughout my life, from one place and country to another. In 2017, we moved once again, but this time something felt different.

For the first time, just a couple of streets away from our new home, there was a mosque standing beside a church. We had moved into a neighborhood that was predominantly Muslim, and suddenly I found myself surrounded by a community and culture that was different from what I had been used to.

I had studied Religious Studies for many years and had always been interested in learning about different beliefs and traditions. I understood the religious side reasonably well, but that wasn't what I was looking for now. I wanted to understand the people around me, their culture, traditions, values and everyday lives, because I felt that learning about the community I was now part of was one of the best ways I could show respect and build a genuine understanding of the people around me.

I didn't want my understanding to come only from textbooks or from what other people said about them. I wanted to discover how different communities represented themselves and how they experienced their own cultures. So I started researching, although at first I wasn't really sure what I was looking for, trying to find something I could connect with. Then it occurred to me: perhaps the answer had been with me all along. I was there to continue chasing the dream I had carried since childhood, through the path I had already chosen in media.

As I followed this new path of research, something began to stand out. Wherever my curiosity led me, Turkish television seemed to appear again and again, almost as if it were waiting to be discovered. Turkish series were incredibly popular in my home country, and I became curious about why. I began to think that television might actually be an interesting way of seeing a culture through its own storytelling, seeing how families, traditions, relationships, history and everyday life were portrayed by the people who lived within that culture, rather than only learning about them through someone else's interpretation.

My family was never the type to sit down and watch television just for the sake of having something on. We were quite selective about what we watched. Coincidentally, I was also in my first year of studying for a degree in television and film, so discovering Turkish television felt almost perfectly timed.

Then I watched the first episode of a historical Turkish series. I fell in love.

It brought together two of my biggest passions: rich history and cinematic storytelling. The costumes, locations, characters, music and way of filming completely fascinated me. But there was something else that I couldn't quite explain at the time.

I felt at home.

I had moved so many times that places which had once felt like home had gradually become distant memories. Yet while watching these series, I kept seeing little things that felt strangely familiar. Certain traditions, family dynamics, gestures and ways of treating one another reminded me of things I had grown up around.

How could something that was, in so many ways, completely different from my own background feel so familiar in my heart?

It was comforting. And so began a journey that I never expected.

From Watching to Learning

My first year at university became a year of discovering Turkish television. By my second year, I was no longer simply watching it. I was taking inspiration from it.

I began recreating scenes, studying how they were filmed, looking at the way actors performed and thinking about the creative decisions behind the stories. I became increasingly interested not only in Turkish television, but in Turkish history and the way history was represented on screen.

I even enrolled in a short course in Ottoman Turkish. We were taught the basics of the language, and I found it fascinating, although "difficult" would probably be an understatement.

By my final year at university, I decided I wanted to take my interest one step further.

I wanted to learn Turkish.

At the time, I was also studying Russian, but trying to keep up with both languages was more than I could manage. So I waited until I had finished Russian and then turned my attention to Turkish.

I discovered that Anadolu University offered a free foundation-level language course. I completed a year of online study using their pre-recorded lessons. It gave me a foundation and somewhere to start, but if I'm completely honest, I think the main thing I came away with was a migraine every day.

Still, I was determined.

By then, I had decided that after graduating I wanted to move to Türkiye and work in the entertainment industry. It was a dream that felt very real to me, so I worked hard to learn as much as I could.

For my final university project dissertation, I decided to combine everything I had become passionate about. I wrote about Turkish television and its growing influence around the world. I researched the history of Türkiye, the development of television and radio, the international spread of Turkish series, and even a particular company I desperately wanted to work for.

It ended up being the project that received the highest grade of my entire university education. My lecturer was so impressed that she even started watching some of the series I had mentioned in my dissertation out of curiosity.

For a while, everything seemed to be moving in the direction I had imagined.

I was researching different areas of Türkiye, looking at where I might live and imagining what my life there might look like after graduation.

Then everything changed.

When Life Takes an Unexpected Turn

Two completely unexpected things happened. The first was COVID-19. The second was something I could never have imagined.

One morning, sometime after submitting all my university coursework, I opened my phone and saw that the Turkish company I had written about in my dissertation had posted something. At the same time, several Turkish actors and actresses were sharing it.

I opened it. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

A news blog report had appeared online, and it contained, word for word, the work I had written for my university project. My research had been taken and published under somebody else's name. Suddenly, the project I had spent so much time researching and writing, the project I had been so proud of, was reaching an audience far beyond anything I had ever expected, but without my name attached to it.

Unfortunately, there was very little I could do. I was just a student, while on the other side was a large corporation. It was incredibly frustrating. But strangely, it didn't make me want to give up. It made me want to work harder.

And somewhere along this journey, something else very important had happened. I had started meeting Turkish people.

The People Who Became Family

During my first year at university, almost like a little miracle, I met a Turkish girl called Buse online. We initially met because we had similar interests and followed each other on social media. She lived far away from me, but somehow became much closer to me than many of the people who were physically around me.

What started as something as simple as liking the same things turned into one of the most beautiful friendships I have ever experienced. She was Muslim and I was Christian, yet we prayed for each other, supported each other, in the purest way possible. She was a few years younger than me, so I naturally took on the role of an older sister. Buse had many health problems and spent a great deal of time in hospitals. She had her own difficulties to deal with, yet somehow, she always found time to listen to mine.

That friendship taught me something that television never could.

The people I had been watching on screen were no longer just characters in stories. There were real people behind the culture I had become so fascinated by, and I was beginning to know some of them personally. Then, at university, I met another Turkish person who would have a huge impact on my life: Emin.

I never had many friends, so even though my university class had more than fifty students, I really only had one person I could rely on. Emin was the person who encouraged me to keep going. Without even realising it, he gave me the push I needed to take learning Turkish more seriously.

He was protective of me, as he saw his sister in me. He always made sure that other people didn't simply overlook or step over me, which happened more often than I would have liked.

He was also completely crazy, but he had a very good heart. To this day, he still doesn't know the impact he had on me.

Towards the end of university, we had one project where almost everyone left afterwards to go drinking at a bar. Neither of us drank, so we stayed behind. We ended up talking for hours. He told me stories about the village he came from, explained Turkish gestures and traditions, and shared little details about everyday life that I could never have learned from a textbook.

At the beginning of my journey, I had loved the devotion I saw, the culture, the history and the stories.

Now I was beginning to love the people too.

You often see people in Turkish series calling one another "brother" or "sister" and treating friends like family. Seeing that kind of warmth in real life was completely different.

It was heartwarming.

The Long, Confusing Road to Learning Turkish

After graduating, I tried to find as many ways to continue learning Turkish as I could. The problem was that there weren't many options available to me. So I tried everything and anything. I must have collected at least ten different Turkish language certificates from different websites and courses. I tried language apps, YouTube channels, online lessons and anything else I could find. Then I met Ömer.

He was learning English and I was learning Turkish, so we decided to help each other. We corrected one another's exercises, practised through voice messages and generally tried to figure out the language together. I was so surprised at the thought that a complete stranger would take so much time and effort out of his day for another stranger, not expecting anything in return, but simply to help. But that didn't last long. Life got in the way, and unfortunately, we parted ways.

Little by little, I began to understand more.

There was another problem, though. The Turkish series I loved were becoming increasingly frustrating to watch. Translators had started using Google Translate so that episodes could be released more quickly, but the accuracy was often lost.

Sometimes a translation would completely change the meaning of a sentence or even affect the storyline.

I could tell something was wrong.

My Turkish wasn't strong enough yet to translate everything myself, but I could sometimes recognise a word here or there, or understand enough to know roughly what the character was supposed to be saying.

It was both exciting and incredibly frustrating. I knew I was learning, but I couldn't see enough progress to feel satisfied.

Then, completely by chance, I found one of the professors from the Anadolu University foundation course online. His name was Ali, and I discovered that he had his own channels dedicated to teaching Turkish.

Naturally, I added his videos to my already enormous language-learning playlist. But then something even funnier happened. I discovered that Professor Ali had also started acting.

He would occasionally appear as a character in the very Turkish series I was watching. I remember the first time I saw him show up on the screen, it got me shouting, "Teacher Ali, what are you doing here?!"

It became almost like he was appearing in the series just to remind me: "You've watched three episodes in a row. Go back to studying."

At this point, learning Turkish had started to resemble a twenty-step skincare routine. I had so many different things going on: apps, videos, courses, exercises, music, television, certificates and conversations, that I was overwhelming myself.

I was doing everything. And somehow, I still felt like I wasn't getting anywhere.

Then I Met Seda

Eventually, I realised something. If I wanted to improve, I had to do something differently. You cannot keep doing the same thing and expect a different result.

That was when I met Seda.

I studied Turkish with her for a year, and it was one of the best decisions I could have made. She brought back the excitement I had felt at the beginning of my journey. She was encouraging, kind and incredibly patient. Seda quickly became much more than just my Turkish teacher. Even when I speak about her to my own mother, when mentioning our classes, I find myself calling her "my sister Seda." She was an incredible teacher, but what made her truly special was how deeply she cared about me and about every one of her students. I never felt like just another person during her classes. She genuinely wanted to see us grow, not only in our language skills, but also in our confidence and in ourselves. That kindness and care made learning with her feel less like taking a class and more like having someone beside me who truly believed I could do it. And somehow, studying Turkish became my favourite part of the day.

Most importantly, she helped me calm the anxiety and frustration I had developed around learning. She taught me that I didn't have to understand everything immediately. I didn't have to rush. I didn't have to do twenty things at once. I could simply take things slowly.

And that changed everything.

For a long time, though, I still felt stuck. I couldn't see my own progress.

Then one day, during work, I had a quick break and opened my phone. Seda had sent me a voice message, so I played it aloud. My brother was working with me that day.

He stopped what he was doing, looked at me with an expression of complete surprise and said:

"You understand all of that?!"

I don't think I had ever seen him so impressed by anything I had done. He is usually the one making jokes and calling me names, so hearing genuine amazement from him made me realise something.

Maybe I actually was improving.

Another moment happened while I was working as a babysitter. The children were resting, so I put on a Turkish series. Their mother, arriving from work, came over and asked what I was watching. Then she said something along the lines of: "Wait, but how many languages can you understand?"

I brushed off the question by simply stating that I was still learning. When I looked back at the screen, I hadn't even realised the subtitles weren't working. That was another moment when I stopped and thought about how far I had actually come.

Sometimes progress is happening quietly in the background, and you don't notice it until someone else points it out.

When Turkish Became Part of My Life

At some point, Turkish stopped being something that existed only in my notebooks, language apps and lessons. It began appearing naturally in my everyday life. Music played a surprisingly big part in that.

I have always had a passion for music, and I seem to learn much faster through songs than through traditional studying. Somewhere along the way, I realised that I probably knew more Turkish songs than songs from my own home country.

I never planned for that to happen. It simply did.

One of my favourite moments happened in June 2023, when I was in Berlin volunteering. One evening, I went to an event, crowded by people from all over the world. Tarkan started playing. I knew every word.

Before I knew it, my arms were up, I was clicking my fingers, singing at the top of my lungs and doing the steps as though I had been practising them my entire life. I found myself surrounded by Turkish people. Honestly, if someone had walked into that room without knowing me, I don't think they could have told me apart from everyone else.

It was such a simple and joyful moment, but I remember looking around and thinking about how strange the journey had been.

Years earlier, I had been sitting at home watching Turkish television, trying to understand a language that felt completely foreign to me. Now I was in Berlin, surrounded by Turkish people, singing Tarkan and dancing along with them as if it had always been part of my life.

I still hadn't made it to Türkiye. But somehow, Turkish had already travelled with me.

When Learning Became a Way to Help

Then came February 6, 2023. The earthquake in Türkiye changed everything for so many people. I had never imagined that the language I had spent years struggling to learn could become useful in such an immediate and serious way.

I stayed up countless nights retracing maps of affected areas, trying to identify routes that emergency services could still use. I marked roads and possible routes and sent the information as quickly as I could so that people on the ground could reach areas where help was needed.

My Turkish was still far from perfect. But it didn't need to be perfect to be useful.

For the first time, I understood that learning a language wasn't only about being able to have a conversation, understand a television series or sing along to a song.

Even my imperfect Turkish could help me understand information, communicate, connect things together and contribute in some small way when people desperately needed help.

That changed how I viewed language learning. It wasn't simply something I was doing for myself anymore.

Where the Journey Has Taken Me

I still haven't been able to visit Türkiye and live the dream I had all those years ago of moving there and working in the entertainment industry. In many ways, my life took a completely different direction.

But along the way, I gained something I never expected. I gained Turkish brothers and sisters. Buse, Emin, Ömer, Seda and so many others each played their own part in my life. Some encouraged me, some taught me, some challenged me, some made me laugh, and some simply stayed beside me when I needed someone.

When everything else in my life felt uncertain or fell apart, Turkish was one of the things I continued fighting for. It became a goal.

Then it became a source of hope. And eventually, it became part of my life.

Today, I volunteer by helping people who, for different circumstances, never had the opportunity to receive an education or complete a degree. I teach them, support them and help them along the way as they work towards qualifications that may open new doors for them.

I meet people from many different countries, including Türkiye.

And being able to communicate with someone in their own language, even if I am not perfect, can give them something surprisingly important: a little place of familiarity and comfort. That is perhaps the greatest thing Turkish has given me.

I am still learning.

I still make mistakes.

I still have days when Turkish makes me question every decision I have ever made.

And I still sometimes hear a sentence and think, "I have been learning this language for years. Why do I suddenly understand absolutely nothing?"

But then I remember the girl who first sat down to watch that historical series. She didn't know where this journey would take her. She didn't know the people she would meet, and the impact this small decision made in her life. She only knew that something about it felt familiar.

And perhaps that is the most important lesson I have learned.

Sometimes we begin learning something because it interests us. Sometimes we continue because we love it. And sometimes, without realising it, the thing we are learning becomes a bridge between people, cultures, dreams and even versions of ourselves.

I may still be waiting to visit Türkiye. But Türkiye has already become a part of my life.

And perhaps that is why I keep learning. This year, my name appeared in the credits of a Turkish production alongside that dream company I once was so passionate about. Sometimes, life has a funny way of delivering our ambitions.